East Prussia

East Prussia, known in German as Ostpreussen, was a province of Prussia, the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and Nazi Germany from 1772 to 1945, granted to Prussia by Poland in 1525. East Prussia was a part of Prussia from 1525 until 1945, becoming a part of the German Empire upon German unification in 1871 and remaining a part of Germany until World War II. The region was an enclave of German settlers, with the cities being made up of Protestant Baltic Germans who had settled in the region during the 1300s during the Northern Crusades. In 1945, the Soviet Union conquered East Prussia from Nazi Germany at the end of World War II, and it became known as "Kaliningrad Oblast" under Russia.